Sunday, January 19, 2014

Scientists have found human brain can process an image
seen for just 13 milliseconds.

The human brain can achieve the
remarkable feat of processing an image seen for just 13 milliseconds, scientists
have found. This lightning speed obliterates the previous record speed of 100
milliseconds reported by previous studies.

In the study, scientists showed people a series of images flashed for 13 to
80 milliseconds. Viewers successfully identified things like a “picnic” or
“smiling couple” even after the briefest of glimpses.

“The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what
vision does is find concepts,” study leader Mary Potter, a professor of brain
and cognitive sciences at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement.” That’s
what the brain is doing all day long — trying to understand what
we’re looking at.”